MANJU KOHLI Vs. ATUL PURI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) PETITIONER No. 3 Smt. Sudha is .the daughter of petitioners Nos. 1 and 2, who are her parents. The respondent is husband of Smt. Sudha. The respondent (husband) filed a complaint under sections 500/34/149 of, the Indian Penal Code against the petitioners in the court of judicial Magistrate 1st Class, Amritsar, on January 22, 1990. The complaint is founded on an allegation made in a petition dated June 13, 1989, under section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure made by the wife against the husband in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Amritsar. In para 4 of the said petition for maintenance, it was averred by the wife that the respondent (husband) was a habitual drunkard and had illicit relations with his sister in-law named Devyani wife of his younger brother, Arvind Puri. Further, allegation made in para 9 of the petition under section 500 of the Indian Penal Code is that the petitioners approached the respondent to arrive at an amicable settlement. The meeting was held at the house of maternal uncle of the respondent who is an Ex-MLA. Several respectable persons named therein were present. In their presence the petitioners i.e. Smt Sudha and both her parents again repeated the allegation that the respondent had illicit relations with Mrs. Devyani, wife of Arvind Puri, and that is why she was not going to live with the respondent. After recording preliminary evidence, the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Amritsar. passed the summoning order Annexure P-3 dated June 14, 1990 The petitioners seek quashing of the complaint as also the summoning order on the ground that the same is an abuse of the process of Court.

(2.) IT cannot be disputed that whether the allegations made in the complaint under section 500 of the Indian Penal Code are true or fals, cannot be gone into in the present proceedings. For the purposes of section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure the allegations made therein must be assumed to be true. It is also not disputed that the allegations do constitute the offence of defamation as defined in section 499 and the wife has no immunity from being prosecuted for defamation on the ground that the defamation committed was of her husband. See M.S. Verghese v. T.J. Ponnan and another, AIR 1970 SC 1876.

(3.) THE contention of the learned counsel for the respondent, on the other hand, is that no sanction under section 195 (1)(b) of the Code of Criminal Procedure for prosecution was required and that benefit of exception to section 499 of the Indian Penal Code cannot be claimed by the petitioners at this stage. It will be only during the trial that the petitioners, would be entitled to substantiate the necessary ingredients of Ninth Exception and take benefit thereof. He has referred to a number of decisions of the Supreme Court in support of his contention.